EFFICACY OF RELICS OF ST. RITA
It is quite certain that the power of working miracles belongs only to
Omnipotence; nevertheless, the many wonderful works done at the tombs
of the saints seem to indicate that in those holy places there breathes
an air participated through that incommunicable virtue by means of
which not only those sacred bodies, but everything that belongs to
them, co-operates in performing the wonderful works of God and in
celebrating and making known these wonders. This is the same power
that first accompanied the shadow of St. Peter, as the Holy Spirit
assures us it did,[1] and that afterwards, on the testimony of St.
Augustine, was communicated to those renowned chains that were the
instruments of his generous confession and his guide to martyrdom. The
Church's history supplies us with innumerable examples of cases in
which similar virtue was annexed to relics of the saints and to objects
connected with the veneration of them, and in St. Rita's case we have a
special confirmation of this fact. And, to keep to our subject, the
truth of this assertion as regards St. Rita is witnessed by immemorial
report, by such examples being recorded in the process for her
beatification, and by proven cases, some of which we here record.
Before the saint's body was removed to its new resting-place--that is,
before the year 1745--it was the long-established custom of the nuns to
cover it with a new veil every year, the old one being divided into
minute portions and distributed to the faithful to satisfy their
devotion. 'Many miracles were worked through them,' says Father Rabbi,
who cites the following case as an example:
On the 27th of April, 1652, twenty-four years after an office in honour
of St. Rita had been granted, a fire broke out in the house of Giovanni
Polidori in Narni, and soon spread to an alarming degree. His wife
Chiara, seeing that human aid was of no avail in overcoming the
increasing flames, and recollecting that she had a little piece of the
saint's veil, hurriedly sent her daughter to the roof of a house that
had not yet taken fire to cast from there the piece of veil into the
flames. The daughter did as she was told, and for fear the relic,
which was wrapped in a piece of paper, should not carry so far owing to
its lightness, she tied it with a thread to a piece of mortar. As soon
as she had done so, she threw it, and the fire immediately ceased.
Then Chiara, her family, and the others who were living in the house,
went directly to St. Augustine's Church to offer their thanks to God
and His saint. They found in the church the woman who had given the
piece of veil to Chiara, and who was of even greater faith than her.
Chiara considered that the relic was burned, but the woman maintained
that it must have escaped the fire, for the instrument of the miracle
ought not to have become the food of the conquered flames, and told
them to go and look for it amidst the ashes. They went, and Chiara
soon had reason to wonder at a second marvel, for she found the relic
just as it had been when it was thrown into the flames, and neither the
paper around it nor the string was in the least burned. They then
returned to the church to renew their thanksgiving for the wonderful
works done in their favour. The report of the occurrence was soon
spread abroad, and a public account of it was printed on the 25th of
the following May.
It was also a pious custom of the nuns to distribute to the people the
dust, the scrapings from the walls, and such things, of the saint's
cell, and of the first coffin in which her sacred body had been placed
and in which it had lain until 1745, and many marvellous results were
obtained also from the employment of these things. Amongst other
wonders Father Rivarola relates this one: A servant of Cardinal
Fachinetti, Bishop of Spoleto, had a daughter who was blind of one eye,
and whose other eye was so diseased that no hope could be entertained
of curing it. She recovered the sight of both eyes by the sole use of
that dust, which her mother cast into her eyes, an act which would
naturally have further injured her eyes if the dust had not been made
salutary by the Omnipotent, who, as we read in the Gospel,[2] gave
sight to the blind by using clay. A certain Francesco Armilli obtained
a similar grace by the same means. Both of these afterwards went to
Cascia to give public testimony of the facts, and to return heartfelt
fervent thanks to St. Rita.
There are authentic documents in existence to prove that marvellous
cures were also wrought through the means of the oil of the lamp that
burns before the receptacle wherein the saint's body is placed. By
means of that oil Alessandro Alessandrini of Amatrice, who had been
stabbed in the side, and was almost at death's door, got better in a
moment of the violent pain he was suffering, and was afterwards
entirely cured without the use of any other remedy, nor did any sign of
the wound remain on his body.
Granita, the wife of Antonio Vanatelli of Atri, was cured in the same
manner of a large abscess on her side. Signor Pompeo Benenati of
Cascia, who was a captain in Ferrara, was cured of a dangerous
hemorrhage by the same marvellous remedy, and as a mark of his
gratitude sent a silver lamp to the sepulchre of the saint of his
native town, his deliverer. A son of Signora di Giovanni Andrea of
Nursia, whose feet, legs, and arms were so crippled that he could not
stir from his bed, was healed by the virtue of that same oil, and was
afterwards as able to go about as if he had never been ill. Don Sante
Mazzuti, parish priest of Castel San Giorgio, near Cascia, who was
attacked by the plague, which was devastating many parts of Italy in
the time of Pope Alexander VII., was also cured by applying the same
wondrous oil.
It was also customary with the nuns, from the year 1500 at least, to
bake little loaves on which they impress the image of St. Rita, and
these, after having placed them in presence of the sacred body, they
distribute in large quantities, and even send them to distant
countries. Devout people who are seeking favours from the saint in
their necessities, after reciting a _Pater Noster_ and _Hail Mary_, or
some other prayer, eat a little of that bread, and they drink a little
water, perhaps in memory or in honour of the very little food the saint
was accustomed to use, for bread and water were her usual sustenance.
Now, as many authors testify, on the authority of the process of
beatification, and the witnesses cited for the canonization confirm
them, the sick have often found this bread a very efficacious remedy in
their illnesses, and especially those suffering fever. Moreover, in
cases of storm by sea or land, it is a pious practice in some places to
throw a bit of the bread towards the sky or into the sea whilst
reciting a prayer to the saint, and it has often been observed that
thereupon calm and tranquillity succeeded. It is, in fact, related
that many sailors have been thereby delivered from shipwreck, and,
amongst others, Pompeo Martini of Cascia and his companions whilst they
were on a voyage to Sicily. They tell, too, that in time of pestilence
many were either preserved from infection by using this bread, or else
regained their lost health.
With regard to this matter, there is one fact at least which we ought
not to pass over in silence. We have already made mention of that
contagious disease which was rife in the year 1656, to the great loss
of many Italian cities, and which brought desolation to Rome itself.
There lived in Rome at that time a girl of about twelve years of age,
daughter of an innkeeper, whose house was near the Church of St. Blase,
which had been dedicated about that time to St. Rita. The little girl,
by reason of the great devotion which she had towards the saint, was
accustomed to make use of these little loaves. It happened that whilst
she was sleeping one night with her two aunts they were both
unexpectedly attacked by the pestilence, and both of them died that
night whilst she was asleep. When she awoke she was so frightened by
what had happened that she fell off into a faint so deep that she, too,
was thought to be dead, and she was put with the two corpses on a car
and carried to the cemetery of St. Paul that had been arranged for
those who died of that disease. When they were removing the bodies
from the car she was found to be alive and conscious, and was carried
back to her home amidst the astonishment and joy of all who were
present. When she was asked at home how it was that she was alive, she
answered, 'I do not know, except that when I awoke and saw that I was
lying between two dead bodies I said, "Blessed Rita, help me."' Now,
let us ask how could a person of tender years, after being so long
between two persons just then dead of the plague, escape the contagion
without the special favour of heaven, or of that saint who had been the
special protector of her devout client? How admirable, indeed, is God
in His saints!
[1] Acts v. 15.
[2] John ix. 6.